Collation of existing (historical) Antarctic fast ice core Chlorophyll a data

The Antarctic Fast Ice Algae Chlorophyll-a (AFIAC) dataset is a compilation of currently available sea ice chlorophyll-a data from land-fast sea ice (i.e., excluding pack ice (see ASPeCt-Bio, Meiners et al. 2012)) cores collected at circum-Antarctic locations during the period 1970 to 2015. Data come from peer-reviewed publications, field-reports, data repositories and direct contributions by field-research teams. During all campaigns the chlorophyll-a concentration (in micrograms per litre) was measured from melted ice-core sections, using standard procedures, e.g., by melting the ice at less than 5 degrees C in the dark; filtering samples onto glassfibre filters; and fluorometric analysis according to standard protocols [Holm-Hansen et al., 1965; Evans et al., 1987]. Ice samples were melted either directly or in filtered sea water, which does not yield significant differences in chlorophyll-a concentration [Dieckmann et al., 1998]. The dataset consists of 888 geo-referenced ice cores, consisting of 5718 individual ice core sections, and including 404 full vertical profiles with a minimum of three sections. Samples/sections from the remaining cores represent: i) bottom 0.05 m only (n= 32), ii) bottom 0.1 m only (n = 301), complete cores (n = 66), as well as intermittent profiles (n = 85) with at least 3 sections but gaps in-between them.
For questions about this dataset please contact: Klaus Meiners and Martin Vancoppenolle This data compilation was carried out under the auspices of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research - ASPeCt program and the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR) working group on Biogeochemical Exchange Processes at the Sea-Ice Interfaces (WG-140). It also contributes to SCOR WG-152 on Measuring Essential Climate Variables in Sea Ice (ECV-Ice).

An update to this dataset was submitted in September, 2018.